Tag: zen

Mud, Sand and Weeds

A very short Zen story of journey and place

By Genkai Phil

OzZen Yarrawarra Retreat, May 2025

Photo by Jamie Irvine

The track starts out firm, winding through tall forest of eucalypts, paperbarks and she-oaks.

Moving downwards it soon becomes muddy.

Oh shit! I’m wearing thongs, the world’s most unstable footwear. I take them off.

Soon marveling at the quality of clayey soil, at once both slippery and sticky.

The track, an old and rutted road in parts, is full of watery holes, cloudy and mysterious. How deep? I avoid stepping into them in bare feet, perhaps there are hazards. Tree roots, broken glass, bits of metal.

The mud starts to give way to sandier substrates. Firmer, meandering paths of animal feet or human passing.

I am soon in amongst the weeds, dotted among heathy shrubs, wound up in grasses and sedges. I could get lost in here. Clinging, tangled up, scratchy. Tick ridden.

Small billabongs appear, home to frogs, birds, fish and iridescent dragonflies. Probably tiger snakes!

The back of a dune slopes before me. Gritty and unstable. Slow going, nature’s speedhump.

I can hear it before I see it. The whumping of waves along the steep shoreline.

I have spent many years, decades actually, playing in the fringes of the Pacific vastness. 

I have experienced much joy and learnt many lessons.

I am intimate with the shapes and heights of waves. The directions they come from and the spaces between them. The way the wind sparkles and rips up the surfaces.

Swept along the shore in the drift, pulled out in rip currents. Riding high and fast, being held under and fighting for breath.

Yet, many mysteries remain beyond the edge of things. A vast deepness and expanse. Creatures benign, playful, life giving, monstrous.

A muddy track, a sandy shore, trees, shrubs, grasses and weeds.

All gifts from the cosmos.

Gassho.

Photo by Phil Pisanu

The Experience of Intimacy in Zen

Talk from OzZEN Zazenkai in Sawtell 2nd March 2025. Intimacy in Zen is discussed in terms of two aspects of 1. presence with all of life, and 2. emotional availability and vulnerability. A complete offering of ourselves, unmasked.

This brings forth the character of the Bodhisattva as: simple, joyful, and open to life’s possibilities.

We mention “Intimacy and Commitment” from Ordinary Mind Zen teacher Elihu Genmyo Smith’s book “Everything is the way”. We mention three koans: The Hands and Eyes of the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion (Blue Cliff Record Case 89), The National Teacher’s Monument (Blue Cliff Record Case 18), and Dizang’s “Not knowing is most intimate” (Book of Serenity Case 20).

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

The Character of the Buddha

The qualities perfected by the Buddha are the paramitas: generosity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration, wisdom. We see these qualities in the Pali Suttas on right speech, and helpful here are two suttas in the Middle Length Discourses, MN58 and MN41. The Buddha is the embodiment of the perfections and so when he speaks of, for example, right speech, he is describing himself.

Then we look at speech and silence in the koan collections. The trifecta of koans in the Blue Cliff Record, Cases 70, 71, and 72, all revolve around the koan: “How can words be spoken when your mouth is sealed shut?” And, finally, we venture onto Case 3 of Record of Empty Hall – “The World-Honored One Finally Pays Attention.”

Opening to Love

Here we go from St Francis of Assisi’s Prayer for Peace, to the Zen Koan “I have already become like this”1. From there we accompany “Seven Wise Women in the Charnel Grounds”2 and then see what thirteenth century Zen priest Eihei Dōgen has to say about “Birth and Death” in his fascicle of that name.3

1 Susan Murphy’s take on Case 41 of Transmission of Light from her book Red Thread Zen

2 Case 9 from The Hidden Lamp collection edited by Florence Caplow and Susan Moon

3 “Birth and Death (Shōji)” translated by Arnold Kotler and Kazuaki Tanahashi from Moon in a Dew Drop edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi.

Image by winterseitler from Pixabay

Meeting Yourself Along The Way

This Zen meditation guides you in and takes you tripping along, riding on the breath, through some old Zen stories. Where will you go?

The first is a re-telling of “A Parable” from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki. This story sets up a persuasive set of circumstances which leads someone (and that someone is us) to discover the completeness of the simple act of enjoying eating a strawberry.

Two koans are featured, both are from The Gateless Gate by Koun Yamada (adapted below).

Case 30 “Mind is Buddha”

Taibai asked Baso in all ernestness, “What is Buddha?” Baso answered, “The very mind is Buddha.”

      VERSE 
      The blue sky, the bright day. 
      It is most detestable to hunt around; 
      If, furthermore, you ask, "What is Buddha?" 
      It is like shouting your innocence while holding the loot.

Case 36 “Meeting a Person Who Has Accomplished the Way”.

Goso said, “If you meet a person on the path who has accomplished the Way, do not greet them with words or silence. Tell me, how will you greet them?”

      VERSE 
      Meeting on the path a person who has accomplished the Way, 
      Do not greet them with words or silence. 
      It is right in your face; 
      If you want to realise, realise on the spot.

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

From July 2023